Arts & Crafts

Folk applied arts are closely connected with the Uzbek people's traditional mode of life. Over the centuries craftsmen worked in towns and villages and certain districts of the towns were allotted to particular crafts. The applied arts of Uzbekistan embrace a wide range of materials used and methods of ornamentation. During the last century the dynamics of the development of traditional handicrafts was constantly decreasing and many crafts disappeared almost completely.

In the times of independence Uzbekistan has revived the most of these lost crafts. Presently craftsmen are practising more than twenty types of traditional handicrafts including ceramics, metal chasing and embossing, knife-making, stone carving, ganch (stucco) and wood carving, jewellery making, silk and gold embroidery, silk weaving, rug and carpet-making, block printing, leather work, wood turning and papier-mâché work.